Twilight Struggle: No. 1 for a reason

I haven’t been this excited to talk about a particular game in a while. Granted, I’m always excited to talk about board games, but this one in particular, I’m uber excited to share. Which game is it? Twilight Struggle.

Twilight Struggle is ranked No. 1 for board games, war games and strategy games on boardgamegeek.com. That’s quite impressive. I’ve had this game for about a year and a half but have never played it until two weekends ago. And then I played it a second and third time in the next few days.

Twilight Struggle is a 2-player game that plays about 180  minutes. The mechanics seem daunting at first glance, but the main reason I just played it is because I’ve never wanted to bring a 2-player game to a gaming event. It seems very anti-social. So when a friend of mine who enjoys heavier board games had a few hours to sit with me to learn and play, I immediately busted it out.

Twilight Struggle is a card-driven game based on the Cold War. It’s U.S. vs. U.S.S.R. battling each other for world domination. The game comes with a giant map of the world, cards containing historical events, and lots of tokens that are placed as influence markers for various countries. There’s also a Space Race and the constant threat of nuclear war with the movement of the DEFCON level.

The game plays out from 1945 to 1989, the end of the Cold War. There are 10 turns, with 6-7 actions rounds for each turn. Players begin each turn with a headline card that’s played simultaneously. Those effects are then resolved, and the U.S.S.R. begins his first action.

On your action, you can do one of three things:

1. Play a card’s event, triggering the text on it.
2. Play a card for Operations Points (which is located on the card’s left side inside a star). If the event is associated with your opponent, it is also triggered.
3. Play a card to move along the Space Race.

If you play a card for Operations points, you can:

1. Place influence markers in countries that are adjacent to, or in the same space with friendly influence markers on the map. It costs 1 point to place a marker in a country that is friendly-controlled or uncontrolled. It takes 2 points to place an influence marker in a country that’s enemy-controlled. If the country’s control status changes while placing influence markers, additional markers during that action are placed at a lower cost.
2. Reduce enemy influence in a country with a realignment roll. Both players roll a dice, and each can add modifiers to the die roll from controlled adjacent countries, adjacency to a superpower, and if the rolling player has more influence in the target country. The high roll may remove the difference between the rolls from the opponent’s influence in the country.
3. Stage a coup. First you multiply the stability number of a target country by two. Then roll a die, and add the Operations Points on the card to it. If this modified die roll is greater than the doubled stability number, the coup is successful. A successful coup then removes a number of your opponent’s influence markers from that country. If there are insufficient influence markers to remove, add friendly influence markers to make up the difference.

When you use a card for Operations Points, the event triggers if it is associated with your opponent. If it’s a red star, it’s associated with the U.S.S.R., and white for the U.S. You can decide if this happens before or after spending your Operations Points. This is a very important mechanic to the game, thereby creating the warlike tension that every action can result in a negative outcome. The first two times my friend and I played we didn’t factor in those events, but then I realized that we had been playing it wrong. Oops. Now we know better, and the game is even better!

One of the cards you can use as an action is the China card. This card starts with the U.S.S.R. player and once used, it goes to the U.S. player. It does not count toward the hand limit, and the card cannot be played during the headline phase. The card is worth 4 Operations Points, or if you use it as an event, it gives +1 Operations value when all points are used in Asia. It also gives one victory point to the player holding the card after 10 turns.

If you decide to spend an action on the Space Race, you burn a card worth a certain number of Operations Points, and then roll a die. If you satisfy the requirements on the Space Race track, you move up and reap its benefits.

For each turn, a number of military operations via coups must be done by each side. Failure to do so results in loss of victory points. But when you do a coup in a battleground country (which is marked in purple on the map), it moves the DEFCON level down one. If you hit DEFCON 1, nukes are released, the world blows up, and the player whose turn it is loses the game.

Victory points are awarded when a player plays a Scoring Card. Scoring Cards are continent specific, and you get victory points based on your presence, domination and control in the area. Presence means you control one or more countries in the region. Domination means you control more countries and more battleground countries in the region than your opponent does. Control means you control more countries and all battleground countries in the region. Plus, you get an extra victory point for every controlled battleground country in the region and controlled country adjacent to an enemy superpower.

The game ends immediately if a player reaches 20 victory points or if a player controls Europe. If you make it to 10 rounds without triggering DEFCON level 1, and neither player has 20 points or controls Europe, you score each region as if that region’s scoring card has been played. The player with the highest number of victory points wins.

This is an amazing game. I really enjoyed the head-to-head competition and trying to decide the lesser of two evils when playing those cards. Those 3 hours of play time go by quickly as you become embroiled in the politics and history of the Cold War. Do you chase your opponent into regions or do you work to establish control in an area? You also have to pick your battles to ensure that World War III doesn’t occur. I don’t have enough words to explain how awesome this game is. It’s definitely worth picking up and learning.

Who out there has played Twilight Struggle?